Established in 2009 Under the Authority of North Carolina General Statute 15A-404

A robbery on the UNC Charlotte campus last weekend has prompted a safety advisory from university police for students and staff.

Police issued the advisory Monday, after two people were robbed shortly after 1:30 a.m. Sunday.

No injuries were reported, and no arrests have been announced in the case.

UNCC police say the incident is a reminder that students and staff should walk, jog or bike on campus in groups, using well-lighted and heavily-traveled areas. The use of headphones is discouraged, police say, because they can distract the listener.

In addition, students and staff were reminded to avoid wearing expensive jewelry or displaying cell phones, because those items can be attractive to thieves.

The robbery was reported on Van Landingham Road, according to the police report. Three men confronted the two victims near East Parking Deck 3.

The bandits took two laptop computers and a cell phone from the victims, then ran away from campus on John Kirk Road.

All three suspects were black males, according to police. One was about 5 feet 8 and 160 pounds, wearing a red hoodie and dark-colored pants. A second was 6 foot 3 and 230 pounds, wearing a black hoodie and light-colored pants. The third suspect was 6 foot 3 and 200 pounds, wearing a black hoodie and dark-colored pants.

Anyone with information in the case can contact UNC Charlotte Police at 704-687-2200 or leave information online with Crime Stoppers.

Like this:

Investigators with the Statesville Police Department are asking for the public’s help in locating a suspect wanted in connection with a stabbing.

Kelvin Roberts – Credit: Statesville Police

Just before 5 a.m. on Sunday, Statesville Police responded to a home in the 400 block of Monroe Street for reports of a stabbing.

When officers arrived on the scene, they located the victim who was suffering from a stab wound. The victim was taken to a local hospital then airlifted to Wake Forest Univeristy Baptist Medical Center for further treatment.

Other people at the home at the time of the incident told officers the suspect had already fled the scene.

Investigators determined 48-year-old Kelvin Roberts is the suspect in this case, and obtained felony warrants for assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury.

Roberts is still wanted on these charges. If you have any information on Roberts’ whereabouts, please call Iredell Crime Stoppers at (704) 662-1340.

Like this:

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police have a warning for you about the next time you log on to your computer– con artists who hi-jack your computer and threaten to throw you in jail unless you pay up.

It happened to Delrena Barnaby, a bright 18-year-old who’s headed to college.

She spends a lot of time of the computer, but recently something strange happened.

“So I got on the computer; at first I was on MSN looking at pictures, and then the screen turned completely black,” she said.

When the screen came back there was a disturbing message and an official-looking Department of Justice seal.

“They said I had child pornography and adult obscene behavior and all this stuff on my computer and it had my address and everything on it, I was like how did they get my information,” said Barnaby.

The first person she told was her mother.

“It made me feel very upset because she was upset,” said Mary Troy.

Delrena read all 14 pages of the letter and when she got to the end, she knew this was a scam because the letter asked for $300 to handle the problem.

“If I pay money? That doesn’t make sense; if it was the government they would just come with the SWAT team and busted down the doors and everything,” she said.

Mrs. Troy is worried about what might happen the next time her daughter logs on.

“You know no one in your home was on a child pornography site, but you wonder how they got access. We do have a WiFi router, so you wonder if someone is using your router to access this material. I’m a mom, and this is pretty disturbing.”

Police say the best way to protect yourself is to independently contact the agency or business that claims you’re in trouble and don’t just write a check.

Like this:

In the shadow of the Bank of America Tower, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police find a homeless camp tucked back in a small patch of woods off Brevard Street.

There are tents and it appears the tents are currently occupied, but at the moment no one is around. In one of the tents, Sgt. Ivan Reitz finds nearly a half-dozen computer bags. All are empty — the computers long gone.

There is only one explanation to Reitz why a homeless person would have all those empty computer bags.

“These are gotten through either grabbing them at bus stops, breaking into cars, or victimizing somebody in some way to take the property,” he says.

With that kind of evidence, Sgt. Ritz says the man living in the tent could be arrested, but that is not the goal of a new police approach to deal with the homeless and the crimes they might commit or are committed against them.

No longer is the goal to arrest or roust the homeless.

“The goal is to make a connection, the linkage to different services,” said Darren Brown, a councilor from Charlotte’s Urban Ministries. Brown actually goes out with police officers when they go into the camps to offer help to those living there.

Officer Bob Goodwin of CMPD is along with Brown on this trip into what was once a camp for 20 or more people, again located in some woods near Brevard Street. Goodwin explained what the new police policy offers the homeless.

“There are councilors that can address homelessness, drug issues, alcohol issues. They help them find jobs. Whatever resources they need, outreach provides them,” he said.

One of the team’s success stories can be found just the other side of the railroad tracks from the Music Factory parking lot. There, what was once a homeless camp has been totally cleared and cleaned up. Many of those who called it home have now moved into shelters or have, in some cases, found permanent shelter.

“We are helping some guys that have been homeless for 20 years, so it was a really good feeling to help those guys out,” said Brown.

City Council approved spending $800,000 in tax-payer money Monday on renovating the Orchestra-level ladies’ bathrooms at the Belk Theatre.

The entire project will cost around $844,100 to complete. The extra $44,000 will come from the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center funds.

There are currently 24 ladies’ stalls, which is technically enough for the theatre capacity. However, the theatre’s patrons typically all use the bathroom at the same time, which Blumenthal Performing Arts Center President Tom Gabbard says causes some awfully long lines.

“In our customer surveys, it is the top complaint. They love everything else about coming to the Belk Theatre, but waiting in line to go to the bathroom the whole intermission is kind of a drag,” said Gabbard.

The city of Charlotte owns the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center, so council opened the project for bidding back in June.

The selected bid expects to complete the renovation project for $844,100. The plan is to replace all 24 of the women’s stalls and then add 24 more.

“This is the first major overhaul since 1992, that’s when the Belk Theatre opened,” explained Gabbard, “it’s a large number of toliets, plumbing, sinks and more.”

“This isn’t a case of pulling a number out of thin air,” noted City Councilman Warren Cooksey, “this is the Blumenthal identifying what work needed to be done and we are picking the best responsive bid.”

The renovation is expected to take about six months. Theatre-goers should not expect to be impacted.

There are no plans to renovate the men’s restrooms.

The Blumenthal Performing Arts Center has about $40million worth of impact annually on Charlotte’s economy.

Last month, lost in the news media’s attempts to blame law-abiding gun owners (and a rifle that wasn’t even used) for a crazed man’s attack on the Washington Navy Yard, came a report from the City of Akron, where Police Chief James Niceoffered a very public explanation of why background checks, no matter how stringent, are never going to prevent criminals from obtaining them.

It’s a weekly occurrence in Akron, several shootings for police to solve, all despite the police department’s best efforts to get the guns off Akron streets.

The problem is frustrating for Akron Police Chief James Nice who says teens and young adults just break into homes and keep stealing more guns to shoot each other with. He doesn’t think the justice system is doing enough to stop them.

Nice tells AkronNewsNow ” Unfortunately nobody is putting these kids in jail, and right now if you’re being arrested in Summit County for weapons under disability, or concealed carry, they’re doing zero days in jail. I’ve been screaming about this. This is the problem.”

Nice says Summit County judges are not always sentencing those convicted of weapons violations so they fear no consequences when they attempt to settle disputes with bullets.

If Toby Hoover, Michael Bloomberg, Diane Feinstein or any other gun ban extremist would like to explain to me how a background check is going to help stop repeat offenders who aren’t being locked up from simply stealing the guns they use to inflict mayhem upon society, I’d love to hear from them.

Chief Nice wasn’t finished. He also made clear that one of gun ban extremists’ favorite press-grabbing tactics – so-called gun ‘buybacks’ – do absolutely nothing to get crime guns off of the streets.

Gun buy backs are a farce. The gang members, and people stealing guns are not bringing those in. Gun buy backs are bringing 70-year old shotguns from widows. They’re bringing those in to sell,” says Nice.

We’ve been saying that for years.

Gun “buyback” programs, misnamed because a government entity can’t “buy back” something it never owned to begin with, have been proven to be a failure at preventing violent crime.

According to the federal government, gun ‘buybacks’ have “no effect” on preventing violent crimes. (Preventing Crime: What Works, What Doesn’t, What’s Promising, National Institute of Justice, July 1998)

“Buy backs” remove no more than 2% of the firearms within a community. And the firearms that are removed do not resemble guns used in crimes. “There has never been any effect on crime results seen.” (Garen Wintemute, Violence Prevention Research Program, U.C., Davis, 1997)

Up to 62% of people trading in a firearm still have another at home, and 27% said they would or might buy another within a year. (Jon Vernick, John Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, Sacramento and St. Louis studies )

More than 50% of the weapons bought via a “gun buy-back program” were over 15 years old, whereas almost half of firearms seized from juveniles are less than three years old. (District of Columbia buyback program, 1999)

According to a variety of sources, the actual effect is that gun buy-back programs:

Disarm future crime victims, creating new social costs

Give criminals an easy way to dispose of evidence

Are turned in by those least likely to commit crimes (the elderly, women, etc.)

Cheap guns are bought and sold back to the government for a profit

Cause guns to be stolen and sold to the police, creating more crime

Seldom return stolen guns to their rightful owners

“They do very little good. Guns arriving at buy backs are simply not the same guns that would otherwise have been used in crime. If you look at the people who are turning in firearms, they are consistently the least crime-prone [ed: least likely to commit crimes]: older people and women.” (David Kennedy, Senior Researcher, Harvard University Kennedy School Program in Criminal Justice, in appearance on Fox News, November 22, 2000)

These are well-known facts, even among gun control advocates. Don’t believe me? Consider this, from an internal Mayors Against Illegal Guns email obtained through a public records request to the City of Columbus Mayor’s office:

“We don’t like gun buybacks because you tend to get very old guns from non-offenders. Not the new crime guns that are the problem.”

Janey Rountree Special Counsel Criminal Justice Coordinator’s Office Office of the Mayor of New York City

Thieves in Charlotte are increasingly targeting smart phones — snatching unattended phones from bar tables or cars and even robbing people of the devices, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said on Thursday.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police say cell phone thefts have jumped nearly 24 percent through the first 10 months of 2013 when compared to the same time period last year. Robberies in which cell phones were taken jumped more than 33 percent.

“People should think of their cell phone as currency in their hands, because that’s the way thieves think of it,” said CMPD Maj. Jeff Estes, who made the announcement about the uptick. They can take a new model, current edition cell phone and steal it and turn it over into cash for hundreds of dollars in a matter of minutes.”

Estes recommended that cell phone owners download apps that help them locate lost or stolen phones and also record a phone’s serial number and other identifying information so officers can trace it once it’s been stolen.